


Recovery

by sshysmm



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Book 3: Disorderly Knights, Drug Abuse, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Overdose, Prompt Fill, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, the band Au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-27 01:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21383608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sshysmm/pseuds/sshysmm
Summary: After an out-of-control album launch party at Lymond's country studio, St Mary's, Kate Somerville watches over her daughter's friend, and her daughter, who saved her life.--Written for Whumptober 2019, set in the Band AU I've been writing (see collections).--There's 31 of these ficlets and I apologise profusely for burying other work in the tags. I will *always* tag these as 'the band au' and you can usethis nifty extension (ao3rdr)to block the tag if this isn't your thing and isn't what you want to see in the Lymond tags!
Kudos: 4
Collections: Ficlets in the Lymond Band AU for Whumptober 2019





	Recovery

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted to tumblr, October 30 2019.](https://notasapleasure.tumblr.com/post/188697192614/for-stripedroseandsketchpads-who-has-been-the)

Kate Somerville felt she had already spent more than enough time in hospitals over recent years. She rearranged the bouquet of flowers on the teenager’s bedside unnecessarily, fussing at the pinks and oranges to try and even the colours out. Perhaps as she did, she thought of the sick girl’s flushed cheeks and apricot coloured hair. The flowers seemed as unruly as the girl, however, and Kate’s ministrations foundered as she recalled why she had never had the patience for flower-arranging. Instead she cast a surreptitious glance at the sleeping face of her daughter, who was settled in the chair by the bed, her arms folded beneath a rough tartan blanket, a book balanced precariously on her knees.

Letting out a quiet sigh, Kate resisted the urge to tweak the blanket up to Philippa’s chin and move the book to safe storage on the crowded bedside table. She lingered in the doorway, still looking for ways to help, and thinking of what an odd couple they were. She tried to remember her own ineffable teenage friendships and found the memories so thin and faded as to be little more than stereotypes. It should have been some measure of relief that she was so certain her Philippa would never be the one in the hospital bed because of an overdose of hard drugs - but her daughter’s defiant protectiveness, while it made Kate’s heart swell, left her full of fear for the child. Philippa would stop at nothing to make sure her friend was safe, and that, as Kate did not need to imagine, might land her in trouble for other reasons entirely.

The ward was quiet at last, and in the silence and cloying warmth Kate realised just how tired she was. Her toes tingled and her knees ached, and she could smell the cheap powdery hot chocolate from a vending machine at the end of the corridor. She could leave them for a moment like this, she supposed. They looked like the remnants of a melancholy sleepover, and Kate resolved that on waking they should have all the orange juice and white toast they wanted.

—

The squeak of Kate’s rubber-soled boots receded and Philippa raised one dark-lashed eyelid. She squirmed under the woollen blanket, working the stiffness in her back out against the uncomfortable hospital chair. Laying her book aside, she scooched closer to the bed, moving as quietly as she was able to.

Even behind the respirator Joleta looked so strange and young lying there amid the pillows, her skin cleansed of make-up and hair brushed nearly to its natural straightness. Frizzy permed ends still extended tendrils to her neck and collarbone, and Philippa thought they looked abominably tickly - she extended a judicious finger and flicked them aside. In this state, all of her friend’s bold artifice and defensive worldliness was absent. She looked almost angelic: her high white forehead was dusted with freckles (that she hated), her nearly invisible blonde brows had been plucked to savage neatness, but her expression was serene.

Such equanimity in unconsciousness was hardly surprising: she had handed over control to some unknown other, her life tossed high in the air like a ball for someone else to catch. Philippa had been the one to grasp the responsibility, as the only person at the party who had thought to call the emergency services while others observed the spectacle of Joleta’s brother arguing blame with their host.

Philippa ran over what she remembered of the night: lots of adults drunk-laughing loudly, a few having very earnest discussions about guitar pedals or amplifiers, and Joleta, insisting in slurred and slightly hysterical tones that she would win Lymond over to her charms. Speaking the words that had turned Philippa’s stomach with pity and fear: “It worked before when we were both sloshed.”

Naturally, it would be assumed that Francis Crawford was responsible for what had happened. He was the host; the rock'n'roll legend; a figure around whom many other women - and men - had foundered and been lost.

Philippa’s black brows lowered and she tutted at the unconscious girl. This time, much as she might once have wished him punished for all the crimes in the world, Philippa knew that Mr Crawford had nothing to do with Joleta’s overdose.

On the billowing duvet, lonely and questing, Joleta’s fingers twitched. No more was needed to draw Philippa from her introspection - from second-guessing herself and all who had been at the party - and into the automatic generosity of warmth that she had been taught so well. She wrapped her own hand around the other girl’s and raised the cool skin to her cheek, leaning her elbows on the edge of the bed.

Joleta turned her head on the pillow, her eyes narrowed against the bright hospital lights. Did she wonder why her brother wasn’t here? Why it was Philippa by her bedside and not the one who was legally her guardian?

She smiled weakly behind the plastic, not really lucid enough to be self-conscious about anything. “Pippa,” she whispered, and her friend saw no trace of longing for anyone else’s company. Joleta tried to squeeze her hand back, and Philippa’s eyes stung in an abrupt betrayal of her determination not to cry.

“Hush,” she managed to say. “Recovery first. We’ll sort everything else out later.”


End file.
